Petrified Wood

Harder than saw-blade steel, this gem
was surely never wood. What tender green
could grow from stone-cold orange cambium?
Yet growth-rings, seven fat and seven lean
recall both plenty-years and years of drought.
Intruded quartz, a jagged mass of white
recalls the thunder-strike and wooden shouts
of breaking. Sunk in montmorillonite,
a strange clay-change turns trees to stone. Medusa's
eyes were not as potent-- only meat
was hers to alter so. But clay reduces
everything to mineral at last,
a color-coded skeleton, complete
recording of a lost organic past.


Collection available! Knocking from Inside